Why I Hate Werewolves
by Bad Werewolf
Summary: Why I hate werewolves, by Draco Malfoy. A short story about Fenrir Greyback.


Disclaimers: I own nothing here. I'm very fond of the theory I voice in this short story, but I'm sure someone else may have thought of it first. Maybe it was lurking in the back of JKR's mind herself, when she wrote the scenes in Philosopher's Stone and Half-Blood Prince that inspired me to believe this theory. Oh, and there's one line I couldn't resist taking from Pirates of the Caribbean, too. Either way, I will repeat, I own nothing here.

Author's Note: It actually was a full moon on December 23rd, 1988, I checked. Any and all misspellings in Fenrir's speech are deliberate and should be read phonetically.

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It was a dark and stormy night. Alright, so it started in the early evening, still daylight but overcast, and it WAS stormy. Pouring sheets of rain, thunder and lightening. It was the night before Christmas Eve, and my parents were hosting a party. It was, as usual, extravagant and as overtly expensive as is possible without being outright gaudy. I don't remember all the details, but there were glittering lights and a lot of relatives I didn't see the rest of the year, nor did I much care to see them at this time.

I was eight years old, and not as much of a fan of proper parties as my parents might have liked. I sulked in the corner for most of the event, avidly avoiding the distant cousins already in their teens who might either have picked on me or tried to suck up to me, depending on which side of the family they were from. I was equally determined to avoid the adults, ranging from elderly aunts who wanted nothing more than to pinch my cheek until it hurts, to the less elderly uncles who wanted to pick fault in my father's ability to raise and discipline a child.

All in all, it was not an experience I would care to remember, but one thing made it truly unforgettable.

A gatecrasher.

I had heard stories about him, most children had. Muggles get Little Red Riding Hood, the cuted up nice innocent version of events. The stories I have heard were if you were bad he would hunt you down and turn you into a monster like him.

It was with a dramatic clap of thunder that the ballroom doors crashed open and the intruder advanced into the suddenly silent crowd. Room was made for him, in part for recognition of him on sight, in part for the smell. Blood and alcohol. I wasn't particularly close to him when he entered, skulking in a corner as I was, but the smell reached me none the less.

He wore rags that resembled something I had seen in pictures of homeless people, many layers none completely intact. His matted and tangled greying hair reached past his shoulder in stringy clumps, and his beard was scraggly as if he'd tried to trim it with a pair of garden shears while drunk. His eyes were wild and cruel, but what frightened me most about his appearance was his teeth. The rest of him could perhaps be mistaken for human, but the teeth were large, yellow and sharp. Better suited to some wild beast like a chimera or a manticore.

"Lucy-Lushuss!" he drawled between hiccups, waving a nearly empty bottle of fire whiskey threateningly in my father's direction. "You nev-never in-hic-vite me to thesh fanshy doos of yoursh."

Several of the guest had started murmuring amongst themselves, and I overheard my great-aunt Melora saying to herself, "Well, there goes the rest of the night." and with that she touched a Portkey and was gone. A wide berth was afforded the intruder, while several other guests followed my great-aunt's example and fled the scene. Most were not fortunate nor paranoid enough to wear password-activated Portkeys on their person, and the main entrance was blocked by the unwelcome guest.

"Well, I say. This isn't very good at all, now is it?" one man near me said, showing a fob watch to another. I recognised them as Messers Nott and Rookwood. Rookwood's eyes widened, and he muttered a few words I didn't recognise but was sure they weren't the sort of words to repeat in front of mother.

I started edging further away from the unwelcome guest as inconspicuously as I could, still listening to what the beast was saying, "So uncon-incon-nonconshideratable." he said, trying with great effort to make intelligible words, "Would think you wash tryin' to av-hic-avoid me. Your old friend, after all- all we've done togesher. Shcuch a washte, that. Downed in hish prime. Great-hic-great man. Alwaysh thought he had it ter go all the way. Rule the world, you an' me at hish side."

"At his heel, more like." father retorted coldly, "You were nothing but a lapdog, and I am offended that you would accuse me of willingly serving that fiend."

"You- you know what you did better than what they say you think you-" he frowned, as he lost his train of thought, "You jusht inshulted me!" he pointed a long clawed finger at father accusingly, "I'm no lap-dghog."

Rookwood had made it to my father's side now, and whispered quickly in his ear. Father seemed shocked by the news, and glanced quickly at the window before returning his full attention to our intruder.

"Oh jghusht figureringh that ouht now, eh?" the drunken beast gloated, "Yeagh, I bin waitin' for this short of opporturnity for a while now. You wouln' lishen to me before, sho I's gonna teach you a leshon, Lucshy." he looked around the room, now, taking in the guests with a surprising degree of concentration for his state of inebriation. "Whereissee?" he slurred as he searched the crowd.

I had by this time made it near to a tapestry that concealed one of the Manor's many secret passageways, but not near enough to disappear before the intruder's gaze fell on me. "Ello poppet." he said with a malicious grin. Something in his stare made me freeze with fear. I'd never seen such a truely malevolent grin on a sentient being before.

He stalked towards me, and I heard my father shouting, "Impedimenta!" but it didn't even faze the intruder. Several guests wisely took the opportunity of the doors being unblocked to flee.

"I've bin lookin' forward to thish moment sincesh you lot all turned yer backsh on our Lord and Mashter. Serve the lot'er ya right for betrayin' ush all!" he was halfway across the room now, and stopped to glare beadily at my mother, who stepped back from the stare with a faint whimper, "S'been sheven yearsh sincesh your sister went to Azshkabahn for 'im, and you're sittin' 'ere drinkin' champagne!" with a backhanded sweep of his arm several delecate crystal stem glasses that had been sitting on a table fell shattering to the ground, the golden liquid within staining an antique rug on the floor. But no one noticed that detail until much later.

Something prickled the back of my neck, the creeping sensation of something very bad approaching, and I noticed the sound of rain had stopped. Only the ragged breathing of the drunken intruder remained in the moment of deathly silence, as he turned his full attention back to me. Then a glimmer of silvery light filtered through the window and the most hideous howling laughter erupted from the intruder as he began to convulse. How he could laugh like a maniac through what looked like a very painful transformation was beyond me. But after several very long moments of writhing flesh and twisting bones the cackling turned into barking and suddenly the teeth fit the face, as the man had become a snarling wolf.

Screams rent the air as some of the more clueless guests recognised what they were seeing. A werewolf had just transformed before their eyes and was now slavering in their midst. And he was looking... Right... At... Me.

I heard curses shouted by at least a dozen different people, but all converged on thin air where the werewolf had stood a moment before. He had leaped at me, claws and teeth bared and snarling. I had been just as quick, the instant he crouched to pounce whatever trance had held me rooted to the spot broke and I darted under the table behind me. Not a moment too soon, as I saw the tips of razor-sharp claws protruding from the underside of the table. A rending and cracking of wood was all I heard as I stared at the beast's clawed feet in front of me as it tried to free its paws from the table. Then the snarls reached my ears and I backed up into the wall behind the table, absolutely terrified.

More curses could be heard, but no words made it through the fog of terror clouding my mind. One set of claws had left the table above me, and now I could hear the beast pounding on the table with his free paw, trying to break through it to me. I scrambled to the side, towards the next table, and as I did so my hand came to rest on a fork fallen from the table above.

Mother always told me to be careful at parties, careful not to damage the best china dishes and crystal stemware and silver cutlery money could buy. Silver. I picked up the fork and glanced back at the clawed foot nearest me, still within arm's reach. It was an easy decision, and probably a foolish one, but before I knew I had made it the fork was deep in the beast's foot and a howl of pain rent the air. It swiped in my direction with its free paw, and its claws grazed my shoulder as I backed away again, scrambling more quickly this time, two tables away. Blood ran down my arm, and it took all the composure that had been drilled into me since I could walk and talk to avoid crying from the pain and fear.

I had almost made it to the tapestry. But was that freedom? Would it follow me now it was focused on me? And if it did would anyone be able to follow to help me? I looked around the room and saw my father taking careful aim with his wand. Not at the beast's body or head, but at its wounded foot, and he cast a spell which caused the fork to melt. The liquid silver seeped into the wound and the beast fell over in agony, writhing in pain and unable to fight.

Binding hexes and a conjured steel cage quickly followed, though they seemed pointless. The silver-laced wound was too much for it to keep attacking. Within seconds my father was at my side, casting a healing spell on my wounded shoulder. I still have the scars, magical beasts' claws have elements in them that magic cannot dispel. I was grateful it was only the claws that had scarred me, and not the teeth. I've always been horrified by blood since that first time I was wounded so severely, and I've always feared even the thought of werewolves. In retrospect it's a shame he didn't die that night. The world would be a much better place without Fenrir Greyback.

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End file.
